PGari Glowee is a Mac brightness app that pushes your XDR display past where the macOS slider stops — across the whole screen, or only in the window you are working in. Spotlight dims everything else, on any Mac, so everyone watching your presentation, class or recording sees exactly what you mean.
Free for 7 days, no account · macOS 13 or later · Universal · Under 2 MB
Spotlight on: one window lit, everything behind it dimmed.
See the difference
One screen, one moment, one set of colours. Left of the seam is the macOS brightness slider at its maximum. Right of it is the same screen with PGari Glowee on Max and Whole Screen — the display’s gamma lifted 1.5×, and not one shade warmer.
Same picture, same colours, same moment. The only thing that changes across the seam is how much light the panel is allowed to emit.
Drag the handle · simulated on an SDR page
New in 1.1 · Boost Area
Working in a browser that is not full screen? Choose Active Window and only the window you are in gets the extra brightness — the desktop and every other window stay exactly as they were. Pinned keeps the light on one window while you click around, and Whole Screen lifts everything at once.
Active Window — Safari is lit, the rest of the screen stays normal. Click another window.
Click a window · simulated on an SDR page
Spotlight · ⌃⌥⌘S
Spotlight dims everything except the window you are in. It works on any Mac display, XDR or not, and it is captured in screenshots and screen recordings like any window — so the people watching your slides, your class or your video look exactly where you want them to. On an XDR display, pair it with Boost Area: the lit window gets brighter while the rest steps back.
Share your screen in a meeting or plug into a projector and keep your slides in an ordinary window. Spotlight dims the notes, the chat and the desktop behind it, so the room follows the slide instead of your notifications.
Click any window in the picture and the light follows it, the way it does on your Mac.
Simulated on an SDR page
Pointer Light · ⇧ ⇧ or ⌃⌥⌘L
Pointer Light dims the screen and keeps a soft circle of light around the mouse, or a band across the line you are reading. It moves with the pointer, it shows up in screenshots and screen recordings, and it works on any Mac display. Tap ⇧ Shift twice to switch it on and off. Scroll to make the light bigger or smaller.
Walk a class through code, show a viewer where to click, or keep your place in a long document. The rest of the screen steps back and the light goes wherever you move.
Move the mouse or drag a finger over the picture. Click it and scroll, or use the slider, to change the size.
Simulated on an SDR page
How it works
PGari Glowee is one small app. It adds a sun to your menu bar and nothing else — no dock icon, no background helpers, no kernel extensions.
Open PGari-Glowee-1.2.0.pkg and follow the installer. The whole app is under 2 MB.
A small sun appears in the menu bar. Click it and choose Turn On, or press ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ G from any app.
Whole Screen, Active Window or Pinned, at Low, Medium or Max. Add Spotlight with ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S. Glowee remembers it all, and Launch at Login brings it back with your Mac.
The icon
Eight rays and a disc. Outline when Glowee is off, filled when it is on. You never have to open the menu to know the state of your screen.
The menu
Turn it on. Choose how much light, where it goes and whether Spotlight dims the rest. There is no window, no preferences pane and nothing else to configure.
The panel
Glowee drives the XDR panel into HDR mode and scales the display's gamma table linearly, so the lit area rises evenly. No tone-mapping change, no colour shift, no white layer on top.
The shortcuts
Hold ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ and press G for Glowee, S for Spotlight or L for Pointer Light — in any app, mid-presentation, mid-recording. Tap ⇧ Shift twice for Pointer Light, three times for the whole menu right at the pointer.
Why PGari Glowee
Most Mac brightness apps paint a lighter layer over your screen, which washes out colour and kills contrast. Glowee does the opposite: it asks the panel for light it already has.
Glowee drives the XDR panel into HDR mode. The extra light comes from the display itself.
The gamma table is scaled linearly, so the lit area gets evenly brighter instead of clipping.
No tone-mapping change, no colour shift, no white layer. Photo and design work looks the way you set it.
Boost the whole screen, only the active window, or a pinned one. Everything else stays as it was.
Built-in Liquid Retina XDR, Pro Display XDR and other EDR displays are lifted at the same time.
If Night Shift or True Tone resets the display, Glowee restores your level within two seconds.
Glowee re-attaches to your displays after sleep, at the level you left it on.
Dimming everything but your window needs no XDR panel, and it shows in screenshots and recordings.
Compatibility
The extra brightness uses the extended dynamic range headroom of Apple's XDR panels, so it needs an EDR display — built in or connected. Spotlight is plain dimming and works on any display.
FAQ
No. Glowee scales the display's gamma table linearly and leaves tone mapping alone. There is no colour shift and no white layer drawn over the screen — the lit area simply gets evenly brighter.
Glowee notices the display being reset and restores your level within two seconds. After sleep it re-attaches to your displays on its own.
The extra brightness works on EDR-capable displays, and Glowee lifts every connected one at the same time, including a Pro Display XDR next to the built-in panel. Spotlight works on any external display.
Under 2 MB. It is one universal app with no kernel extensions and no background helpers. Quit it and your display returns to normal.
Yes. Spotlight is an on-screen layer, so screenshots and screen recordings capture it like any window — there is nothing to mask in the edit. The plain brightness boost is left out of captures, so a recording of a boosted screen looks normal.
With Active Window, the front window of the app you are using; click another window and the light moves with you. With Pinned, the window that was in front when you chose it, until you change it. Windows you drag across it stay unlit.
PGari Glowee is developed by Arash André Pourasgari and published by PGari Inc.
Buy once, then it is yours
No subscription, no account, no upsell later. Buy it, get a key by e-mail, paste it into the menu. That is the whole transaction.
Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal, in your own currency. Payments are handled by Paddle, our reseller and merchant of record.
Not sure yet? Take the 7-day trial first — every feature, nothing locked.
One small app, one sun in the menu bar: more light where you work, and Spotlight on whatever everyone should see.
Version 1.2.0 · macOS 13 or later · Universal · Under 2 MB